By Jannie Vaught Marion-Webster definition, a garden in which plants (such as vegetables or herbs) for use in the kitchen are cultivated. Location is an important subject. It is close to the kitchen door. Some who like to figure measurements say 25 steps away. Or you walk past if from the car to the door. Or off the patio where you can gather and enjoy … Continue reading The Topic For Today Is Kitchen Gardens
By Jannie Vaught So many gardens were severely frost bitten, or should I say froze to death, that my message box became full in one day! What do I do and will it survive? If any tender vegetables were out it probably will not be a good producer if it survives. Even my hardy winter worn mustard greens were bent over double. Most of my … Continue reading Trimming Back What The Frost Got
Jannie Vaught Most of the stone fruit trees are budding and many in flower. The Blue Bonnets are showing with their bright blue sparkles. I didn’t realize how color hungry I had become, then the first flowers and the Bonnets show and I think I’ve been living in black and white. I have 2 subjects to cover this time. Perennial, Annual and Biennial vegetables and … Continue reading This Is The Time Of Year We Look Forward To
Jannie Vaught With really wanting to get all my garden plots tilled, fed and ready to go. Onions are in and now potatoes are in the ready. The table and grow lights are going up this week, the soil is sterilized and the trays are cleaned. Get out the seeds and the garden planner and let the seeding begin. For this gardener, it’s a task … Continue reading For This gardener It Is A Hurry Up And Wait Month
By Jannie Vaught Let’s have a look at a few simple ways to rotate our garden plants to keep soil fertility up and loss of nutrients for maximum growth low, by simply moving the plants around every year. Get your garden journal out, and start doing some drawings of last years garden. Write the date and location and growing zone. In this drawing write what … Continue reading Garden And Crop Rotation For Soil Health And Restoration
By Jannie Vaught Stepped out to work in the garden and was driven back into the warmth of a hot tea and time to plan and study. Let’s look at seed preparation. Water soak; many seeds will germinate faster when they are soaked in water before planting directly into the soil. For thick-skinned seeds such as peas and beans soak the night before 8 … Continue reading The Wind Arrived With Cold Temperatures And The Sunshine
By Jannie Vaught For this gardener, it is the first to plant in January through February and the reason we prepared our soil and it is now ready to receive the starts. Your Local Feed stores have them in now. For our growing area, they are Short Day onions. LLano Feed and Supply in LLano Texas and Mason Feed in Mason Texas have the ones … Continue reading Onions, The Fruit Of The Gods It Is Said
By Jannie Vaught Here are a few. Pointsettia, the many varieties from white to red Amaryllis bulb that is forced and blooms its spectacular trumpet, heralding in the celebration. Paper Whites, narcissus with its erect stems with Sweet fragrant white star flowers. Rosemary that blooms the tiny blue flower, as a sweet nectar for the pollinators and Christmas cactus. These are just a few examples. … Continue reading When You Think Of This Time Of The Year Are There Plants You Strongly Remember?
By Jannie Vaught Let’s dive a little deeper on this subject. Habitat, his can be a wooded country site or an urban car park. This is determined by the food plant of the caterpillar and the nectar source of the butterfly. Some butterflies are happy with several food sources habitat and breeding areas while some are fussier and require very specific places and plants. … Continue reading Butterflies Need More Than Flowers And Nectar
By Jannie Vaught As this gardener walks the outside it sure feels like the arrival has been early. Yes, it is cold and as many of you already know the seed catalogs are arriving. So it begins. The planning and selection. First, we get that excited exhilaration of the new items and the great pictures. Then I let it all settle down and go back … Continue reading The First Day Of Winter Is Here
By Jannie Vaught Being born and raised in the 50’s we spent every minute outside. We rode our bikes or walked to school and spent long summer days and every after-school time out with our neighborhood friends doing things that sound out of style now. Like looking at bugs, picking fruit from lost trees, telling stories and in general playing. Till supper rolled around and … Continue reading Everything About Nature And the Outdoors Has Always Been My “Thing”
By Jannie Vaught My question is how is this going to affect the trees which took such a complete assault. So I went to” Texas A&M Forest Service, flood and trees what to do”. You can see this on the internet. Flooding is a catastrophic event and can take years for trees to return to normal. How does flooding kill trees? Roots need oxygen to … Continue reading From Severe Drought To Record Making Flooding
By Jannie Vaught Cowpen Daisy and These are two of the many items on my list of learning more about. Went to Texas A&M Uvalde extension online. Cowpen Daisy, aka, Golden crown-beard, Family: Asteraceae. Annual, Origin: Native. Season: Warm. Cowpen Daisy can be found in various disturbed soils of the Edwards Plateau And the South Texas Plains. Upright to sprawling annual that reaches a height … Continue reading Two Very Different Plants
By Jannie Vaught, If anyone is paying attention and you noticed a difference in the cold temperatures that have arrived, then you are like me scrambling for the door to bring in houseplants, dig and re-pot herbs and tender plants that you want to keep and in general covering your outside faucets and pipes. Also, a very early harvest started on Saturday as I … Continue reading Leaving the Leaves
By Jannie Vaught Yams, beets, parsnips, turnips, rutabaga, carrot, yucca, kohlrabi, onion. garlic, celery root (celeriac), horseradish, daikon, turmeric, jicama, Jerusalem artichoke, radish, ginger are all considered roots. Because root vegetables grow underground they absorb a great number of nutrients. Botany distinguishes true roots such as (tap root and tuberous roots) from non- food roots (such as corms, bulbs rhizomes, and tubers). The term” … Continue reading Roots, My Favorite Vegetable To Grow
By Jannie Vaught This season of fall is turning out to a blessed relief from the drought-ridden summer, and the fall garden is possible the best time to grow in growing zone 8a. As we now have had substantial rain and humidity to revive our native grasses and flower bulbs my fall garden is now ready for some delightful garden salads and greens. Just had … Continue reading A Blessed Fall From The Drought Ridden Summer
By Jannie Vaught, Keep the perennials somewhat alive and prune, prune, prune!! Today was somewhere shy of 109 with no rain and water restrictions. What’s a gardener that is deeply invested in the growing of all things green to do? Take a breath and make hard decisions. Cut back or remove the spring items that were so happy and productive a few weeks back. Tomatoes … Continue reading What To Do In The Garden In The Deep Of Summer Heat And Drought?
By Jannie Vaught As we are struggling with No Rain, drought conditions and the serious state of our water sources it is time to look at this important issue. Trees are resilient and long-lived, but like all living plants, they need moisture, either rain or water coming from us. Trees that are under areas that get water are less likely to get in serious condition. … Continue reading Care For Trees In Times Of Drought
By Jannie Vaught Just when your garden is struggling and your enthusiasm is at an all-time low, something or someone steps into your path and shares with you something that sets that spark a light. This happened this Saturday at our LLano farmers market. Elizabeth Mcmahon “Beth” horticulture county extension agent for Gilespie county, regularly comes to Llano farmers market and has her lovely produce … Continue reading The Uninspired Garden
By Jannie Vaught And here in central Texas, we are under severe heat warnings! Do all the above before the peak noontime or as the sun goes down! Heat exhaustion is a serious complication and can come on suddenly, especially for children. Drink water at least one cup per hour and stay inside. That said as we journey into this drought we are conscious of … Continue reading This Is A Time For Family Gatherings, Cookouts, watermelon, Cantaloupe And Sliced Tomatoes
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